Essex County greenhouse growers not impacted by immigration reform announced Thursday

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Ottawa has unveiled The Levels Plan to limit the number of people moving to Canada, including temporary residents and foreign workers.

However, the new rules are not going to impact the local greenhouse sector, which relies on seasonal workers, according to the federal government’s news release.

“The temporary resident targets in the levels plan do not include short-term visitors or seasonal workers, who are not captured in annual population estimates,” it reads.

Canada is trying to reduce temporary resident volumes to five per cent of the national population by 2026 and has already made changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program.

In September, the government limited access to the program “in the low-wage stream”, but seasonal workers “primarily (in) agriculture, food processing and fish processing” were exempt.

The lack of impact to their sector is, not surprisingly, a relief to Essex County farmers, according to the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers Executive Director, Richard Lee.

“Its very important to ensure that we have access to labour, reliable labour,” Lee said on Thursday.

He hosted a roundtable discussion Thursday with Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne, and Koby Blois, the Chair of the House of Commons Ag Committee and a Nova Scotia MP.

“It’s a coincidence, but a good one,” Champagne told CTV News, when asked if he was in Essex County to coincide with The Levels Plan announcement in Ottawa.

Lee did, however, take the opportunity to address a critical concern of local growers, the federal carbon tax.

“Our growers will spend over $24 million this year just for carbon tax,” said Lee, noting the price will continue to rise until 2030.

“If we continue on this trajectory, it’s estimated at about $73,000 an acre. It's just not sustainable.”

He told CTV News that Champagne and Blois took the criticism “in stride” and he went on to ask them about “offsetting programs”.

“If your input costs continue to climb, then you need to have those offsets some other way,” said Lee.

“Enable agriculture to continue to prosper in Canada.”